OT: German vs Allied Tech in WW2

[copeab]

The Germans who only sent out replacement soldiers at the end of the month? Who had to combine companies nearly every week to have even half-strength battalions in some regiments? Who regularly scraped up whatever soldiers were nearby, such as transients or hospital dischargees, and sent them willy-nilly into combat as "replacement" platoons, with little or no integration into the command structure or unit?

By the end of the war, yes. At the start, no.

The German policy in 1939 was to ;et a unit drop to a certain level due to attrition, then pull it out of combat for a period of time. New soldiers then joined the unit and were integrated/indoctrinated while the veterans were resting. Then, after a period of time, the unit was sent back into action.

This system probably worked well until the first half of 1943, with Stalingrad, Kursk and the fall of North Africa, and continued to deteriorate the rest of the war.

The US, OTOH, just threw new soldiers arriving at the front into units in combat. Many veterans didn't bother to learn the new guys' names, since they expected them to be dead in 2-3 days. Some wouldn't bother to get to know a replacement until he had survived a couple of weeks.

When the American army could make attacks, take casualties and have units at full strength again in two days? That's what the system was designed for, and as far as that goes, it worked. Where it fell down was in our small army in the ETO.

More accurately, the US did have enough riflemen in the war. Other troop types were generally available in adequate (in some cases abundant) numbers.

For example, if doctrine had allowed the Sherman to be armed so it could hunt and kill other tanks, there really would have been no need for all the independent tank destroyer battalions.

[copeab]

.
The Japanese, although tough and determined enemies, were cursed with some of the worst tech of the war. Pretty much all of their weapons systems were inferior to the Western equivalent. The Zero was king for a while, but as soon as allied pilots figured out not to get into a turning/climbing fight with it, it lost a lot of its mystique. Later Allied designs like the Hellcat and Corsair were superior.

The much-maligned P-40 was actually a good match against the Zero as long as the Allied pilot didn't engage in a low-speed turning dogfight or try to out-climb the Zero.

(At high speeds, the P-40 could actually out-turn the Zero)

Japanese infantry weapons were generally crap, across the board. The only major exception was their little "knee" mortars, which could generate impressive close-in indirect fire support. They never had enough artillery, their tanks were crap, and most Japanese infantrymen fought with long, unwieldly bolt-action rifles.

Despite looking like an antique, the Japanese 70mm battalion infantry gun was quite effective.

While their tanks had thing armor and weak guns, they were reliable and had good cross-country performance. The main problem was that fighting the Chinese had taught the Japanese the wrong lessons about tank warfare.

It kind of makes one wonder how the Japanese would have fared with better weapons systems and better leadership.

IIRC, each infantry rifle was stamped with the Imperial chrysanthemum: this marked the weapon as the Emperor's property, which the soldier was allowed to use on his behalf.

Additionally, the long bayonets the Japanese used were "stand ins" for the katana.

[copeab]

Let's remember other German bits of tech that didn't work right:

(1) The FG 42 tried to pack too much power into too small a package, resulting in terrible recoil in automatic fire. Additionally, the cost to produce one was outrageous.

(2) The Me 163 Komet, a rocket fighter tat killed more of it's own pilots than Allied planes did. And that doesn't include ground crew killed by the toxic fuel.

[Legbreaker]

All sides of the war tried different ideas out which failed spectacularly. That's just the price of developing new and wonderful ways of killing the enemy...

[95th Rifleman]

All sides of the war tried different ideas out which failed spectacularly. That's just the price of developing new and wonderful ways of killing the enemy...

I'm reminded of that American bloke who tried to attach incendiary devices to bats.

[Legbreaker]

Or the British idea to detect U-boats by training seabirds to dive on them.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Or the Type 99 machine gun the Japanese had that featured a bayonet lug.

[copeab]

Or the Type 99 machine gun the Japanese had that featured a bayonet lug.

The Japanese loved bayonets more thanthan the USMC did

[Raellus]

Or the incidiary-carrying balloons the Japanese unleased against the U.S. west coast.

[copeab]

I'm reminded of that American bloke who tried to attach incendiary devices to bats.

Those actually worked in tests, in one case blowing up the car of a general observing the test ...

[Webstral]

I'm reminded of that American bloke who tried to attach incendiary devices to bats.

That idea would have worked if it hadn't proved possible to cut out the middle man (bat) and deliver incendiaries straight from the bomb bay to the target.

[Webstral]

(2) The Me 163 Komet, a rocket fighter tat killed more of it's own pilots than Allied planes did. And that doesn't include ground crew killed by the toxic fuel.

There was an idea ahead of its time. If the fuel problem could have been solved in early 1944, the Komet would have the been the ultimate interceptor of its day.

[95th Rifleman]

The Japanese loved bayonets more thanthan the USMC did

Nah the only sentient lifeform that loves bayonets more than the USMC is that crazed species known as the Scottish Highlander.

[Legbreaker]

Or the Australian infantryman. Worse, an Australian infantryman in a kilt!

[headquarters]

mg 42

No question, as a tripod mount or emplaced weapon the MG42 is better than the Bren- however, as a squad support weapon the Bren was without peer at the time. Lightweight (for the time, anyway) reliable (just don't put 30 rounds in the magazine) and accurate, usable by one man at a pinch, fairly weatherproof (one of its last frontline uses was with the Royal Marines for Arctic service)- and iconic in appearance.
It is interesting that, after decades of not using LMGs (the MAG/GPMG covering both the LMG and MMG roles) the British Army decided to go back to having a squad support weapon, the L86- not only at the squad level, but issued one per 4-man fireteam. Standard ammo load initially was 6 thirty round mags per rifleman- but 2 of those were reserved for the LSW gunner.

the mg 42 and its ante decessors - the mg 3 etc are - in my humble opinion - far superior to the mag fed Bren. The Bren - or its Czech predecessor the VZ or LK 26 ( or was it 28 ) was the best there was in the early 1930s. I would say that the MG 42 had better versatility and a more credible sustained fire ability. ( Considering squad mobile automatic fire was only starting to be introduced as a concept in those days.)

Thats not to say that the Bren wasnt any good.